Malnutrition: Nigeria to release guidelines on biofortified maize

Stakeholders have emphasised the need for a standardised policy governing the release of biofortified provitamin A maize to improve the nutritional standard and fight malnutrition in the country.

They made this known at the validation workshop for the development of micronutrient standards for biofortified provitamin A and non-provitamin A maize variety release in Nigeria, organised by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and HarvestPlus in Abuja on Wednesday.

The stakeholders, including the Variety Release Committee, the Seed Council, the Maize Association of Nigeria, the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, and universities, among others, reviewed and refined the draft standards to ensure that only maize varieties with the required beta-carotene levels are classified as provitamin A maize.

The Country Manager of HarvestPlus, Dr Yusuff Fou’ad, emphasised that biofortification, achieved through conventional breeding, enhances staple crops with essential micronutrients and vitamins.

He noted that while Nigeria has a wide range of biofortified varieties, there are no standardised guidelines for the release of provitamin A maize.

He warned that without clear standards, ordinary yellow maize could be falsely sold as vitamin A maize, misleading consumers and undermining efforts to tackle vitamin A deficiency

“We work across the value chain to identify weak linkages where there are constraints within the value chain and we try and work with our partners from the government agencies, departments and partners to neutralise these constraints. One of the constraints is that we don’t have a standard for releasing vitamin A maize in Nigeria. So that means anyone can sell, even if it’s just the ordinary yellow maize, in place of vitamin A.

“Now, we are working with our government collaborators to ensure that we come up with standards to guide us and be sure that if we develop a variety of maize in Nigeria and if it has a certain level of beta carotene in it, that is what should we call vitamin A maize.

“Today, we have technocrats here which had come up with a draft of the standards, we had refined the draft, and we are here to validate it and make necessary adjustments, so that at the end of the day, we’ll have it as a policy document, which is micronutrient standards for releasing vitamin A maize in Nigeria,” he stated.

The Director of the Nutrition and Food Safety Department at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Nuhu Kilishi, reaffirmed the government’s commitment to reducing malnutrition.

Kilishi, who also represented the Permanent Secretary of FMAFS, Dr Marcus Ogunbiyi, stressed the need to expand biofortification efforts to other staple crops such as cereals, tubers, and vegetables.

He also added that steps are being taken to develop cooperative farming clusters that will enable large-scale cultivation and processing of biofortified crops, ensuring broader access to nutritious food across the country.

The Chairman of the National Variety Release Committee, Prof Olusoju Olufajo, emphasised the importance of updating standards for Provitamin A maize, noting that research is constantly advancing.

The don said, “With new varieties containing higher levels of Provitamin A, existing standards must be revised to remain relevant. Validating the document is crucial to ensuring that only the best, high-yielding varieties reach farmers, enhancing both productivity and income. The validation process enables researchers and stakeholders to track progress and maintain consistency in biofortification efforts.

“We want to ensure that what we release to our farmers in terms of variety are the best that are available, and they are the ones that we enhance, not only the productivity of farmers, but that we enhance them economically, because if they produce varieties that are needed by the populace, then these varieties will fetch them more money.

“When we release varieties, we want to know the content of Provitamin A that is there. If we do not know, then it becomes a real problem for us. The document that will be validated will be used as a standard at the time we are releasing varieties, and we will know the minimum content of beta-carotene that any variety that we are releasing as Provitamin A variety should contain, and we also know the target that we have in mind, so we can monitor the progress of work that we are doing from the research point of view and also from our partners’ point of view.”

On his part, the Special Adviser on Nutrition to the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Dr Mustapha Popoola, stated that the government places emphasis on nutrition security, not only food security.

“Over the past years, the issue of nutrition was not on the front burner, but today, the ministry has the whole department on nutrition that is focusing on that. The Vice President just launched Nutrition 774 which is focused on taking nutrition issues to the local government areas in the country. It’s about looking at what we have that is locally available.

“This particular validation becomes so important that you can use it as a benchmark and reference for other vitamins and minerals. So that we can actually take it one by one, start fixing the problem and paying attention to our local source food materials, not imported things,” he added.